When compositions made with soap (e.g., sodium salts of tallow and/or coconut fatty acids) are used for personal cleansing, the wet skin is left with a characteristic feel imparted by residual soap film. The feel is manifested as friction or drag when the wet skin is rubbed with other wet skin, such as by rubbing the fingers of one hand over the back of the other hand after washing and rinsing the hands. Consumers generally associate this "draggy" sensation with a clean feel and describe it as a "squeaky" or "squeaky clean" feel. Personal cleansing products made with synthetic detergents, on the other hand, tend to leave the skin with a slick, slippery feel which is often described by consumers as a "smoothness." Some consumers associate this "smoothness" as a different kind of clean feeling than associated with that delivered by a soap matrix. Simply stated, some consumers associate the "draggy" feel with clean, while others associate the "slick" feel with clean.
In order to appeal to consumers who associate a "draggy" sensation with a "squeaky clean" skin feel, it is desirable, and an object of the present invention, to provide soap-based skin cleansing products which impart an increased "draggy" feel to the wet skin after washing. It is a further object of the invention to provide synthetic-based skin cleansing products which impart the type of "draggy" feel to the skin which users have typically obtained only from soap-based products.
These objects are achieved by incorporating certain insoluble particulate materials into soap and synthetic skin cleansing compositions.
The inclusion of water-insoluble particulate substances in bar soap compositions to achieve an abrasive effect and thereby assist in the removal of difficult soils and stains from skin and other surfaces is known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,659,980, Lindy, issued Feb. 21, 1928, and 3,408,299, Henry, issued Oct. 29, 1968.